The premise of Nightcrawler is interesting enough to justify a viewing
merely on curiosity grounds. A ‘Nightcrawler’ is a particular type of freelance
photographer. These men sleep during the day and work during night. They use a
police radio to get information on whatever gruesome crime/traffic accident
just occurred, drive over, shoot video of the blood in the streets, and sell it
to early morning local news stations. Think about it. You wake up, turn on the
news, and hear and see about something that happened in the middle of the night.
How does that information get to you? This movie explains a lot of that process
and the mere procedural nature of this movie makes it worth seeing if you are
not already familiar with this universe.
The entrepreneur that we follow is a man named Louis Bloom, played by a
very hungry (almost starving) Jake Gyllenhaal. He happens upon a fatal accident
one night and witnesses a Nightcrawler named Loder, played by Bill Paxton,
edging against the paramedics to get a better view of the gore. Louis has the
nature of a man who is immediately intrigued by this sight. He steals a bike to
buy a police radio and a small camera and goes right to work. A station head
named Nina Romina, played by Rene Russo, tutors him on the network storyline:
Minorities from inner cities are spreading into the nearby affluent suburbs and
killing white people. That means some black guy killing some black guy in
Compton is not newsworthy. A Mexican holding up a white person in Burbank is
newsworthy. The more it bleeds, the more it leads.
The noir streets of nighttime L.A. are thrillingly evoked in
writer/director Dan Gilroy’s movie. The orange glows of endless streetlights
are strangely hypnotic. The white and red tracings of car headlights and
emergency vehicles convey the seedy underbelly of the city. Several locations
bring up memories of Hopper paintings, Nitehawks at the Diner sort of thing.
The score is haunting and there is at least one very good car chase. But the success
of the movie hinges on the character of Louis Bloom and here, despite a very
daring performance by Jake Gyllenhaal, it ultimately falters. Plainly said, I
don’t believe a guy like him can exist.
The job of Nightcrawler is the worst job in the news business. It is generally
used as a testing ground for green employees as in, ‘you want to do this job,
go the the next of kin whose relative died the same day and ask for a picture
of the deceased for your newscast.’ It is a rough job and the people doing it usually
have their eyes on bigger things in the business. Otherwise they are freelances
who do this job because they will relinquish monetary pursuits for more control
over their lives. Loder fits that bill pretty well. Louis Bloom is harder to
figure out. When we first see him he is a petty thief stealing metal fences
with pliers and hawking them to local scrapyards. He is at home with
negotiation and has an upbeat if disturbingly upbeat personality. Importantly
it is not established that Louis enjoys the act of breaking the law to make his
money. Given that, it is kind of unclear why this particular type of person
would find it difficult to find steady employment in any business before the
movie begins. After all, he is punctual, learns quickly, thinks on his feet,
and does not indulge in drugs or any other vices. He lives like a hermit alone
in a sparse apartment where he spends most of his time watering a solitary
plant. He has neither family nor girlfriend or even friends. This too is rather
important given that it is hard to tell what motivates Louis Bloom. Louis
recites a lot of capitalistic platitudes about working hard and climbing the
ladder from the bottom and having ambition and what not, but to what end? Who
cares about doing any of that if you don’t want to buy things or get girls or
raise a family? What does Louis want other than to just work in the worst line
of work possible?
Conceivably writer/director Tony Gilroy is trying to make a statement
about what type of person would thrive in the business he is shining a light
on, but whether he is right drowns in the possibility that he might not know
what he is talking about. Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance reminded me most of
Robert DeNiro’s performance in Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy.” In both
movies you have these overwhelmingly anti-social personalities that insist on
certain things past the bounds of any type of acceptable behavior. The main
difference is that Robert De Niro’s Rupert Pupkin though outrageous is
understandable. One scene of him in his mother’s basement doing a make believe
talk show amongst cardboard cutouts goes a long way to illustrating just how delusional
(and rather stupid) are his dreams of being a late night comedian. Gyllenhaal
strikes many of the same chords but at the same time is generally the smartest
person in the room. Well, if he is so smart, why does he go about climbing the
ladder in the most uncomfortable way possible? Why doesn’t he apply his
intellect and ambition in a way that will gain traction with normal human
beings? My intution tells me that Gilroy is making a connection between
capitalism and ruthless inhuman behavior. You know me. I just don’t agree with
that. Capitalism is based on agreements between consenting adults. Louis would
make more sense if he were purely sadistic or delusional or plain stupid. It
does not make sense for him to be completely serious about being a good employee/employer
and in the same breath not care at all about working well with other people.
The unreality of the character undercuts a lot of the tension in what
would have been otherwise dramatic scenes. A perfect example is the scene in
the Mexican restaurant between Louis and his station manager. He has become
quite competent at his job and she is under pressure during sweeps week to keep
her job. He proposes that he will work exclusively for her station in exchange
for lots of money but also sexual favors. That the station head is actually
desperate enough to go along with the proposal is kind of beside the point. The
bigger question is why Louis would want sex from her? Certainly it is easier to
get sex elsewhere given that he is employed and looks like Jake Gyllenhaal but
I don’t even mean to focus on that. The big “Why” concerns the fact that Louis
Bloom does not demonstrate any kind of lustful behavior. For all practical intents and
purposes he is an asexual human being that likes watering his solitary plant in
his empty apartment and that is it. The bedroom scene that occurs takes place
off camera so we do not see it, but I cannot imagine what would have happened
in it. I can’t imagine Louis Bloom having sex. And blackmailing your boss for
sex is definitely not a good career move so why would an almost puritanically
career obsessed guy insist on it. It did not make sense to me.
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